An 'album' of the gala affair, highlighting the Friday afternoon CHS building tour, the evening 'stag' gathering that featured as the guest speaker Art McNally, and the Connect-Reconnect Social that the wives or significant others enjoyed. Also included is the Saturday evening dinner-dance that hosted more than 140 class members and their spouses or significant others as well as special guest Milt Levin and his companion Christine Coleman. See how many of your classmates you can identify...without checking the photo description. Photos courtesy of Al Hirsh

some views of the 214 55th Reunion at CHS, AM segment which featured a dialogue with Timothy McKenna, the new CHS School President (as of 2013), the successor to Dr. Sheldon Pavel, now enjoying his retirement

From the Handbook of the Central High School of Philadelphia 1934-1935 and courtesy of www.phillyhistory.org: a seventy-plus year retrospective look at the CHS experience at the Broad & Green Streets facility and some glimpses of the Philadelphia of the era

Twenty-six CHS students and staff members under the auspices of an Ethel Percy Andrus Legacy Award $100,000 prize from AARP attended the Inauguration of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Central High Social Science teachers Michael Horwits, Stan Levy and Bill Graham selected the students based on the scores they earned on the National Civic Literacy Quiz, on their class grades, and on written essays and interviews. Each student had to pay $100, but much of the estimated $10,000 in expenses associated with the trip was covered with funds of the grant that the Social Science Department won in May 2008 based on three years of "outstanding civic-engagement instruction". Here are some of the photos taken of and by the students and staff in and around Washington, D.C. during this historical event. A special thanks to Bill Graham, CHS Social Studies teacher, and one of the trio of staff members who conceived the trip for his suggestions and 'tweaking' of photos and information. Addition information regarding this extraordinary trip can be found on the CHS News Web Page.

A gallery of photos of our alma mater, its past, present and a glimpse into its future. Included is a series of photos of the newly renovated Barnwell Library and William M.King Communications Center and the Staff Lounge, a $4.5 M undertaking,due,in part, to the generosity of the alumni of CHS, the largest portion gifted by Dr.King. Also in this gallery is a look at the Multi-Cultural Day celebration held yearly in which the staff and students showcase their cultural diversity.

Issues of the Centralizer newspaper beginning November 2004 (Special Sports Edition)- this year marks the 134th year of publication since its inception making the Centralizer among the oldest high school newspapers in the United States!

Courtesy of www.phillyhistory.org, this gallery shows the month-by-month construction of our Alma Mater from the first architectural conceptual drawings for the Old York Road & W. Somerville Avenue site in 1936 through the finished building (1939) at the Ogontz & Olney Avenues site. Also included are some of the salient points from David F. Labaree's "The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838-1939" (Yale University Press, 1988); the visit to 'The Making of CHS'(which was completed in about a year and a half) is worthwhile. The Federal Administration of Public Works financed 45% of the $1.9M construction costs of CHS- as well as those of John Bartram and the Northeast High School for Boys addition for the School District of Philadelphia. The photographic chronology speaks for itself. Also shown is the construction of John Bartram High School- built from the same master plan with subtle differences in the exterior and located at 67th & Elmwood Avenue on the street level.

The new building drew national attention as being "state-of-the art". The faculty and students finished the Fall 1938 semester on January 31, 1939 with the teachers entering their grades and closing out the books and the 171st class graduating at the Broad & Green Street facility. The next day, February 1st, 1939, the forty-one member CHS staff and its 1,250 students moved into the new building at Ogontz & Olney Avenues. February, 1939 also marked the restoration of its original character as an academic high school, discontinuing its commercial, mechanical arts, and industrial courses. Here is an inside look at the new facility as shown in the Handbook of the Central High School of Philadelphia 1938-1940, printed in 1939. The handbook makes the introduction to the new facility matter- of- fact, but one can only imagine the amount of planning that went into the assurance of a smooth transition between the old and the new.